Sensei's Attic
by Dcfan100
Summary: Perhaps the strangest thing you can discover about your sensei, someone who you attempt to emulate and admire so much...is that she was once a teenager just like you. Sad whiffs of NejiTen. Written for the tentendays2019 event.


**A/N: Oh look everyone, I'm back after...five years. Huh. Time flies. Well, better late than never. This was done for tumblrs #tentendays2019 event. Special thanks to gracie-buns-art on tumblr, and AO3's Valania for providing feedback and telling me to get off my lazy keister to finish this thing.  
**

I never liked the walk to Sensei's place, perched as it was where the thick forests of Konoha begin to slope upwards and where the clean earthen roads of the landscape give way to rocky boulder infested ruts.

I've always thought that this region, where the cliffs peak right before falling away suddenly into the steep stone faces where the young chunin like to show off by climbing them one handed, was strange and despite the abundance of trees lonely country, not like her at all.

Sensei's house is located away from the high rises, the constant hum of the electricity, the crowds and lights of the city, but it still surprises me just how traditional it looks. Two stories with curved stone tiled roofing, a wide courtyard out front and somewhat embarrassingly kept dark wooden sidings all gnarled and dented from using the house of all things as target practice.

I wasn't old enough to remember the destruction of the village, so of course the old architectural styles strike me as strange, but it still seemed a little reserved, a little too quiet for someone like Sensei.

The three of us that walked the craggy paths, up the road towards the singular old dwelling sitting amongst the leaves like a hidden shrine made up the squad known as Team…11 I believe. The name had bugged Sensei to no end, and she would swear that someone in the upper echelons was just making fun of her. As such, she never referred to us by our official name and in turn we just called ourselves Team Tenten. Myself, Ryu and Mai…but believe me when I say that we don't come into this story much.

We arrived at the courtyard, an open space that looked like its caretaker had been keen on making it into a zen garden, then a flower garden, then a training ground before just giving up and trying to do all of them at once.

"Hey you three!" Our eyes were drawn skyward, towards the rickety second floor where the outer walkway jutted out just slightly past the levels sliding doors to make something that wasn't quite so much a balcony as it was, for all practical purposes a precariously placed open window.

Still, there she was, leaning up against the creaky oaken railing, her head resting in her hand and a pearly white smile stretched from ear to ear across her face.

I never really understood Sensei's smile, how she could switch on a dime between tough, no nonsense weapons virtuoso and grinning devil may care maverick.

Then one day I saw her old wheelchair bound Sensei walking the village grounds on his hands grinning like a maniac…and it all started to make a little more sense.

Sensei was a little over 22 years of age when we first met her, just above five foot four, with a pair of piercing brown doe eyes that seemed to dance and shimmer on her gleeful countenance. They were barely offset by the vaguely exotic styling's of her fine dark hair tied into a pair of unyielding buns on either side of her head and distinctly foreign looking clothing.

Her smile glimmered down at us again as she cleared the railing with one swift movement, falling the two stories, before gracefully landing feet first just inches away from the faces of her invitees. She looked us over inquisitively like one sizes up a side of meat at the market before pulling back and giving a contented sigh.

"My own three sannin," she beamed. She swung right and stood on her tiptoes to tussle Ryu's own forest of black hair. "Took you all long enough to become chunin."

Ryu just mumbled something under his breath about how all his failings had involved practical application while the rest of us laughed. Sensei took a step back and let her hands come to rest on her hips.

"Since you've all unofficially graduated from my tutelage so to speak. I thought it might be cool to line up a simple D rank for all of you, just so you never forget where you came from."

You could feel pride radiating off of her as she raised a fist in the air and pumped it hard.

"So today we're going to clean out my attic!"

There was silence before Mai spoke up…

"…You really are starting to sound like Guy-Sensei."

That shut her up quicker than anything. With a look absolutely soured by the idea that she was even bearing a resemblance to the Green Beast she turned swiftly on her heels and marched towards the house while motioning for us to follow.

"Ok, let's get to work,"

We shared a laugh again as we headed back inside. Sensei's attitude was almost fickle, she was the bohemian of her class, the iconoclast and maverick. Yet our teacher could turn at a moments notice into a paragon of kunoichi virtue. Old fashioned yet aloof and ever so slightly Epicurean…

…I've given the matter a lot of though over the years, maybe a little too much, but then I doubt that I'm too different from any other chunin my age.

It's a cliché amongst shinobi, but when you're young, a bug eyed and gangly creature taking your first steps from the doors of the academy your Jonin instructor, your sensei is like a superhero.

When you first find yourself thrown into combat every nerve goes on high alert, you feel your senses prime themselves like they're absorbing every bit of data possible through every single outlet. Suddenly it feels like someone's replaced all your blood with molten lava. Your brain comes to the realization that you might not make it back alive, and within a split second thoughts ranging from how much your mom and dad will cry over your death to regrets about not telling that girl in homeroom just how nice her laugh is comes flooding into your mind.

Then the next moment, the very next moment, before the lids of your eyes have had time clasp shut and open it's over and your sensei is standing over the slumped figures of four wannabe bandits, stuffing the end of a six foot maple bo staff into a fifth like he was a stuck pig, nothing but dust and blood left in her wake.

She turns and gives you the widest goofiest grin you've ever seen as every muscle in your body melts in exhaustion while your brain kicks itself into overdrive trying to decipher what just happened. For a greenhorn genin out and about the world on your all important c-rank mission watching Jonin level combat is like something out of one of those storybooks about the Great Sage. For that split second, having seen her in action you can suddenly believe it's all true.

Yet, the older I grew the more curious I found it. The smile bubbled to the surface of her face whenever she sensed that we were stressed, whenever she felt tension in the air. I got the feeling that it was her way of telling anyone who saw it that things were going to be ok.

She was our Sensei, a certified Jonin instructor, war veteran and walking human arsenal. While she was standing beside you there wasn't a thing in the world that could hurt you. Yet, it was the moments when she was standing over you, her figure planted squarely where a hostile blade had been moments before, steel artfully dancing around the neck of your would be assailant, reassuring smile on her face, that I most felt the meaning of her smile came through the strongest.

"So how'd the new genin group turn out?" Mai's voice echoed through the long corridors of the house, the walkways packed so tightly that the three of us began ducking and weaving through the veritable maze of boxes and scrolls for fear of setting off some random device Sensei had doubtless begun compiling, bored of and consigned to her endless piles of abandoned projects in the halls.

"I sent them back to the academy. No way any of those little snots were ready," came the reply from the far flight of stairs. Her voice dropped a little just as her tone took on just a touch of disappointment. "I didn't even get to throw them in my new danger room."

The three of us blanched simultaneously as we began to follow her up.

For her student's entrance test Haruno Sensei had them try and take a pair of bells off of her, Inuzuka Sensei tied a scroll to his dog and let his students play a game of hide and seek in the Forest of Death. Tenten Sensei locked us in what she called the danger room, a darkened obstacle course where each of us took turns being blindfolded as the other two guided the third through the facility all while dodging a hail of deadly weapons fires from the shadows.

It wasn't the most subtle attempt to gauge ability and teach teamwork, but I have to admit I haven't let a shuriken so much as graze me in years.

Sensei's old-fashioned kerosene lantern pierced the silent darkness of her attic as we entered from the step ladder placed just beneath the entrance, but even then the light could only illuminate so many layers of military manuals, stacks of metallic blades and boxes filled to bursting with knick knacks of all kinds before the far reaches of the room once again descended into blackness.

We looked around the mess of an attic, resisting the urge to cough as the musky scent of old paper and dust wafted past our noses.

"And you're sure this is only a D-rank?" Ryo mumbled sarcastically, surveying the hoard of antiques splayed out in front of him.

"Quit your goldbricking," Sensei grinned as she turned back to the three of us. "Ok! First things first! Get all this junk from the attic down to the courtyard! Let's get to it!"

She knelt down in front of the first seemingly insurmountable stack of faded cardboard boxes, grasped the underbelly of the bottom one firmly and hefted the entire thing without so much as a grunt. With footwork that could only come from years of practicing balance and perfecting chakra control she swung around and headed straight for the exit.

Sensei's gait was just a smidge more perfect than the height of her attics ceiling. Two sealing scrolls, a few red hair ribbons contained inside a silver tinged shuriken holster and a deck of cards caught the ceiling cross beam, tumbled from the box and collapsed onto the floor in a heap, sending sawdust spewing into the air.

Sensei grumbled about the house's dimension as she continued heading for the exit while Mai began picking up the fallen items. She tucked the scrolls under her arms while flipping through the cards. A pale rider in armor, a pair of songbirds….She perked up suddenly as a flash of recognition crossed her face.

"Sensei!"

Tenten turned, with hesitation on her heels as her face emerged from behind the stack of boxes still in her arms. Mai held up the brightly colored cards for her to see. "I didn't know you did fortune telling."

"A hobby from my younger days," she shrugged following it up with an airy sigh. She took one spare step backwards, sliding her shoes against the sawdust just centimeters before her whole figure and all the boxes disappeared down the hole as her voice echoed back up. "But at some point you have to stop worrying about the future and just live! So let's live in the now and get to work!"

There was that other side of her personality again, strict and with absolutely no time for genin like frivolities.

Mai and I glanced at each other. The same look on both of our faces and the same thoughts running through our heads. Sensei never really told us anything about herself. Parables maybe, a spare war story or two if we were lucky, but though we knew things like her favorite color, restaurants, crime novels and her birthday…none of us really knew much beyond that, or much of anything about her past.

Mai glanced back at the tarot cards in her hand and I could tell we were both pondering the opportunity laid out before us. A chance to delve into the history and uncover some of our longest held question. Every shinobi has had at least a few question about their Sensei, after all which academy student never felt the urge to peer beneath Lord 6th's mask? …But at what price would knowledge come? An egregious breach of privacy wrought by rummaging through the private effects of our own…

"Look at this," Ryo called us over, already having begun digging through one of the boxes. That boy never could properly read an atmosphere. We peaked over his shoulder as his dexterous fingers pried the top open for us in just a way that allowed him to shut it again without Sensei ever having known it was tampered with. One of his hands dove in and pulled out a gray looking bottle with a bright yellow label on it.

"Commemorative sake for the inauguration of Lady Tsunade, our Fifth Hokage," Mai read slowly. There was silence between the three of us before the questions came collectively spilling forward.

"Sake? Tenten-Sensei? No way."

Sensei never was much of a drinker, we'd been able to get that much out of her at least. Too bad memories of her own genin days she'd always said.

"And she would've been a teenager when this stuff was issued right?"

"She's even got a receipt in there, she definitely bought it herself."

"But why would she?..." I paused as the fragments of Sensei's speeches and one too many of her war stories began to align inside my head. "Don't tell me she was a fan girl?"

"Sensei? Our Sensei? Of Lady Fifth?"

It was like this sudden revelation was all we needed. It was like someone had yelled, ladies and gentlemen start your engines and the three of us were off, hefting and hauling anything we could get our hands on as recklessly as we could, shouldering the cardboard containers one after another, placing stacks upon stacks and gunning for the attic door as fast as possible.

We pulled our last pile from the exit just as Sensei returned. She moved into an adjacent hallway to make room for us, looking very satisfied as she watched her students walk past with their arms full.

"Don't drop any of that now…" she paused before adding quickly. "And if you do be sure to book it as fast as you can, those ones are pretty important."

It was at that point that I'd decided that even if the boxes began detonating right in my hands that my last act as a human being would be to pry them open and glean whatever information I could to take it to the afterlife.

The boxes slapped with half taken care into the ground, sending a thousand little white zen pebbles scattering.

"Ok, we had at least two and a half minutes last time, let's take that as an average measurement and give ourselves a thirty second buffer window between trips." Mai spouted as soon as the items had left her hands.

The next two minutes seemed to be a sudden blur of activity. We sprinted across the yard like jackrabbits from one exhibit to the next as each one produced in us sudden exclamations followed by an endless barrage of question.

"What's the symbol on this scroll?"

"That's a Class S high ordinance warning. The same one that's on the Bashonen fan she keeps in her shop."

"Isn't it…like, illegal to have one of those that's not hermetically sealed?"

"Why does she just have a whole box of these sitting around in her attic ?...Is that why she told us not to drop them?"

"Look!" Mai almost squealed, holding up a photo as her face began sparkling like Christmas had come early.

"Oh gosh, why is her hair down?"

"That's not natural…hang on, is that Hokage-sama's wife?"

"Look at their dresses! Look how young they are! Byzantine purple brings out her eye color so well."

Ryo clutched his arms and mumbled something about how it was like catching his parents making out on the couch and went back to his own search.

"No, no way, it can get any better than this," Mai sighed to herself reluctantly stuffing the photo back inside a green bound album.

"Guys," Ryo spoke up again. He yanked what appeared to be a skintight green jumpsuit from the top of a nearby box labeled "birthday gifts from Lee," and unfurled it in front of us. "It gets better."

"That was the first birthday gift he ever gave to me," a new, and bone chillingly familiar voice chimed in as we all instinctively froze in place. "He was so nervous. Said it was the first time he'd ever given a gift to a girl before."

"Two and a half minutes huh?" Ryo mumbled beneath his breath.

"I know this all must seem extremely fascinating, and I know you all just love the idea of helping me file all my things…" Sensei's voice sang serenely, an indication that she was dangerously close to blowing her top. We all sat with sealed lips, like our shoes were nailed to the floor, not daring to even take a breath as Sensei cocked her head to the side and cracked her knuckles. "But if you all don't stop lazing around I swear I will call the Hokage and ask him to look into revoking your certifications effective immediately. Now…shall we get back to work?"

That was about all it took for the three of us to get our noses our of her business and back to the grind stone. Sensei stood over us as we hustled in and out of the attic like worker bees, with a deathly quiet and contented look on her face.

In hindsight I am eternally grateful towards my mentors mentor, Gai Sensei and his prodigy Lee Sensei, without whom I am sure Tenten would never have built up such a magnificent tolerance to our idiocy.

Our curiosity was sated, for awhile at least, but the rest of the day was punctuated by the occasional spare glance followed by an irrepressible and utterly juvenile round of giggling as images of our Sensei as a teenager danced through our heads.

Sensei took the teasing in stride like she always did, sometimes just rolling her eyes and directing us to keep moving or returning our teasing with barbs of her own.

"I can't wait till you get a group of kids all on your own," she smiled at me, leaning up against the narrow hallway door again as Ryo and I delicately emerged carrying an ancient looking iron artillery piece. "They're going to eat you alive."

The attics kerosene lantern illuminated more and more of the room as the parcels and scrolls began to slowly drain; and with them so to did it seem like the sharp eccentricities of Sensei's personality were being peeled away. Thick blades of tempered steel, longer than I was high and native to the furnaces of Kirigakure were removed to reveal rows upon rows of slim, almost anemic yet deliberate and purposefully forged hand knives, each one with her name proudly carved into their hilts.

Dense azure colored scrolls, artfully rolled, inscribed with calligraphy of village masters and inlaid with images of golden dragons, phoenix's and other creatures of mystical persuasions that imprint themselves on our minds began disappearing. In their place were left boxes of smaller, yellowing parchment rolls, many half unbound, their kanji clearly a middle school effort and at first only half legible, but becoming more and more controlled as the scrolls became newer.

Eventually, only an aged roll top desk, its legs scratched and worn with age, its drawers stuffed with papers and steel remained. The surface was littered with dusty looking notebooks, their spines fraying and forcibly bound together with string. A few had been turned over by the sudden shuffle we'd made to the attics own chaotic sense of order. An old sunflower formerly pressed between the pages of hastily compiled notes on kunoichi and weapons tactics, lay next to a quick sketch labeled "pouch for extra scrolls," and a doodle of what must've been the Fifth Hokage.

I picked up the final, solitary box that rested amidst the manuals and papers on the desk just as Sensei entered the now almost barren attic.

The box wasn't sealed; in fact it was barely even closed. Instead the flaps lay splayed outwards, unable to contain the multitude of photographs and framed pictures inside. Gentle I ran my hand across the top and picked the first one up from the pile.

There was sensei, younger than any photo I'd ever seen her in before hair still tied up in that same style and standing next to another boy who looked far too solemn and serious for his age. Sensei had her arms clasped behind her back, but seemed to be leaning in towards the boy.

His face was taught, tied back into a sort of grimace, the kind that children inevitably develop when they begin to philosophize before the age of thirteen. His lips looked almost curled inwards in an almost mocking parody of the overly serious archetype those of his clan seemed to be pegged as.

"Your teammate from the Hyuga clan?" I asked, not even bothering to glance up as Sensei looked over my shoulder.

"My very best friend." It must have been the dust, or the dry heat of the attic that made her voice sound hollow as she replied. Her voice still had a faint sweetness to it and a hint of her calm remained, but all of a sudden, even though she was standing right behind me Sensei sounded very far away.

I must've looked at least a little confused because Sensei motioned back towards the photo, inviting me to take another look.

"Look at his eyes," was all she said.

In the photo Sensei's eyes were clasped shut, her pearly smile stretching all the way across her face in an almost comical fashion as the tip of one of her buns seemed to almost nudge against the boys cheek. The edges of her hair just barely played against his pale skin, almost tickling it…

I looked back at the boys face and examined those snow white orbs of his. Stoic and stolid as they may have been they were dancing and gleaming just like Sensei's always were. His taught and super serious expression suddenly made sense. He wasn't grimacing, he was holding back a smile, fully infected by her joyful nature, but still trying to maintain whatever degree of poise he could.

Sensei smiled again; at my recognition or the memory I couldn't tell. It was the same smile she always had, warm, friendly with just a hint of mania and yet…In that moment, when her smile was the widest, she looked very sad. It seemed to be the smile of someone who was convincing herself as much as anyone else that things were going to be ok.

I tore my eyes away from her face and back towards the box. I made the mistake of resting my gaze on the photograph, on the happy couple poking and prodding each other, sharing in a happy memory now lost to the years. Something inside of me had twisted itself in a funny fashion when I'd seen her expression, I felt I had to say something else, anything else.

"Do you…want these to go anywhere special?"

Sensei looked back down at the photo of the two kids, dressed in pink and white, looking like they were trying to out charm the other with their looks for the camera. The smile eased, but remained on her sorrowful, nostalgic expression, and a wistful look passed through her eyes just before her lips began to move again.

"No, I know where they are…and that's all that matters."


End file.
